Louis, you drip, the police will never come. Floss will never come. Molly may indeed come. We have to wait for the DNA test after all. Walter may knock your teeth in one day, but it will do you good. You men can preen. See the “Harvest.” Hear music. Make great art. Sell it. Sell your very souls if you wish. It is we witches who know the truth. We see what we see, and we see everything. What I can see, and know, and do, is beyond your understanding. You men.
The police will never come, the drug story is already old news; but even if the DNA test proves Ronnie is her father, one day Molly might come and may want you—my beloved Louis—to be a godfather again. Because poor sick Ronnie won’t be able to do what you, who are so rich and influential, could do for her. Did I lie? I saw what I saw. Yes, I saw you try to have sex with Floss at the wedding, and she would have done it, she was so smashed. Ronnie says you fell in a heap and he took your place. I believe you couldn’t have fucked an inflatable doll let alone a real woman. Apparently Ronnie believes that too, that you could never even have gotten it up. But perhaps you could have done it. I don’t know for sure, and you certainly don’t know. The question of whether you fathered a child is less important than the fact you plied us with your drugs, and lost your mind and your moral compass. I still hold so many cards.
So you see this is my story, not yours, Louis. Floss is more my creation than yours. Floss was my ghostly twin; I was inside her all the way.
Why would I do all this? At the end of it all, surrounded by a hundred thousand angels that only Old Nik could ever see, I wanted to hold at least one good mortal man. I couldn’t hold Walter, or Frank, or Crow, but I could hold the man called Louis Doxtader—and my darling I have held you. Louis, you addled your brain; Nik, you saw the Harvest; Crow, you listened to just six vinyl albums; Walter, you heard the anxiety of your peers.
I have dangled you all on strings.
Discover More
Author’s Postcript
This book was finally finished in May of 2013. I am sixty-eight years old. The world wobbles slightly on its axis, and even the most cavalier of us are a little anxious. I hope that this tortuous tale will one day form the basis for an opera, as Selena promised me. In the future, opera may look more like art-installation, or son et lumière, all wired into a global network of feedback and evolution. In that case—once the play is finished, the music ended, and the racket is quiet—I hope that the appeal planted here for optimism, hope, and appeasement among all the people of this fragile planet will begin to take root. The story is ended, but the idea behind it will continue to unfold and grow and hopefully conclude. We should not be afraid; we can have faith in our species.
We do not need to burn witches.
Copyright
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 by Pete Townshend
“St. James Infirmary” Words and Music by Irving Mills © 1929, Reproduced by permission of EMI Mills Music Inc/ EMI Music Publishing Ltd, London W1F 9LD
Cover illustration by Luis Toledo at Dutch Uncle
Cover copyright © 2019 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Hachette Books
Hachette Book Group
1290 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10104
First Edition: November 2019
Hachette Books is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Hachette Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
Print book interior design by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Eidenburg
ISBNs: 978-0-316-39898-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316-39897-8 (ebook)
E3-20190911-JV-NF-ORI